Cyborg 1.0 (Day 3, ICOT)

Cyborg 1.0. That's the label for Kevin Warwick, who put a computer chip in his arm, connecting his nervous system to a computer, the Web and another nervous sytem! This allows him to control robots with his brain and communicate 'invisibly' brain-to-brain with another human being.

The implications are tremendous:

• we're closer to a 'cure' for brain diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's (Warwick showed a video of a Parkinson's disease patient who, when stimulated via electrodes, actually got up from his chair, walked faster than he previously could, and even performed a small jingle!)
  
  
• can education be Matrix-like, where skills are downloadable? (Warwick explained that, yes, theoretically, entire neural archtypes can be transferred; on the other hand, just because you possessed, say, Tiger Wood's neural structure - although what this would consist of is another black box altogether - that wouldn't necessarily mean you could win the U.S. Open because you'd also require his physique, etc.)
  
  
• what about identity, free-will and consciousness? if someone else could tap into your brain and nerves, could that imply a potential loss of self-determination (a'la Being John Malkovich and similar super-suggestive mechanisms)

Warwick also made a fascinating point about neural implants enabling the human brain to access dimensions we previously couldn't: infra-red, ultra-sound, ultra-violet, x-rays, etc. Our five senses miss out on 90% of the sensory dimension!

Mahathir, James & Capelli (Day 2, ICOT)

Not exactly a day with much new knowledge or tools, but lots of metaphors and good reminders. I listened to four talks, one of which was only a 'brochure' for the school the speaker was from : not good.

Quotable quotes from the other three:

• "How does a man not necessarily burdened with a superior intellect find himself in a position of extraordinary power?" (Colin James on President George Bush)
  
  
• "Democracy cannot solve the problem of bad leadership" (Dr. Mahathir on the inadequacy of liberal democracy, although he wasn't saying we shouldn't vote)
  
  
• "The timespan for one generation today is 6 years" (Glenn Capelli)

• "The camel looked like it was designed by a committee" (Dr. Mahathir)

• "I was suspicious the IMF and World Bank were really trying to control our economy instead of helping the country" (Dr. Mahathir on why he rejected IMF loans during the 1997-8 financial crisis in the region)
  
  
• "I'm not a scholar. My only qualification is my driver's license" (Colin James)
  
  
• "A five-month old foetus can distinguish his/her father's and mother's voice from the womb" (Glenn Capelli)
  
  
• "Being analytical is great but if you overdo it you become the first four aphabets of the word." (Colin James comparing analytical intelligence with somatic and emotional intelligence)
  
  
• "Why should someone spend their time translating for you??" (Dr. Mahathir promoting the use of English - the 'language of knowledge' - to teach Science and Maths in Malaysian schools; he was taking a shot at those who wanted to revert to Malay)
  
  
• "The deaf talk with their entire body; we normal folks are so boring - we just move our mouths." (Glenn Capelli)
  
  
• "There are 6,000 languages in the world - 90% of them near extinction" (Glenn Capelli)
  
  
• "When you run out of language, the violence begins" (Colin James on the Middle-East situation)
  
  
• "Natural play is the greatest developer of the brain - it's better to let a child play with the cardboard box than the toy inside it!" (Glenn Capelli)
  
  
• "I was studying to be a priest, but I had a problem with one of the vows: Obedience" (Colin James)

"There is no PURE intelligence" (Day 1 of the ICOT)

Some points from the sessions I attended (about all I can recall for now):

• Giving standard tests and examinations, whilst seemingly the fairest way to assess pupils, may in fact be un-fair because it ignores the different kinds of intelligence of the students
  
  
• Intelligence is always contextual; there is no 'pure' intelligence (syllabus- and lesson-planners, heads up!)
  
  
• Multi-tasking is a myth!
  
  
• Photographic memory is a myth (the savant who could draw out the exact details of Rome as he flew in a helicopter over the city notwithstanding)
  
  
• Character is indispensable for education; the 'best and the brightest' of America were the ones who started the Vietnam war
  
  
• Teaching knowledge is less effective than teaching concepts
  
  
• The best way to win in Monopoly is to buy as much as you can, not just Mayfair and Park Lane!
  
  
• Learning increases when our hormones are tensed or fired up (e.g. driving!)
  
  
• 55% of Australian workers wouldn't mind taking a pay-cut for a more fun work environment

Emergent Education (TLC's Presentation @ the 14th ICOT)

View more OpenOffice presentations from Alwyn Lau.

The Crazy Ones (Apple)

Can we save our students the cost of textbooks?

I fully support Seth Godin's rant:

"Professors should be spending their time devising pages or chapterettes or even entire chapters on topics that matter to them, then publishing them for free online. (it's part of their job, remember?) When you have a class to teach, assemble 100 of the best pieces, put them in a pdf or on a kindle or a website (or even in a looseleaf notebook) and there, you're done. You just saved your intro marketing class about $15,000. Every semester. Any professor of intro marketing who is assigning a basic old-school textbook is guilty of theft or laziness."

Be Irreplaceable

If you wait tables, make sure that the customer's experience depends on you, and who you are, and would have been different with another server who served the same meals.

If you are a technology consultant, make sure that your client's experience would be totally different if another consultant were delivering the same advice.

If you are a doctor, make sure that your patient's experience is made special by who you are, and would be different if another doctor delivered the same diagnosis.

If you are lecturer, make sure.....???

Read the full post at the Tom Peters blog.

Question: Is there a difference between being irreplaceable and being indispensable? (Hint: If no one else can fill your shoes, how are you ever going to get promoted?!)

10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now (from TIME)

From TIME magazine. Which is most relevant in a college setting?

"Web 2.0" is one millionth word!

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A U.S.-based language monitoring group crowned Web 2.0 as the one millionth word or phrase in the English language on Wednesday, although other linguists slammed it as nonsense and a stunt.

The Global Language Monitor, which uses a math formula to track the frequency of words and phrases in print and electronic media, said Web 2.0 appeared over 25,000 times in searches and was widely accepted, making it the legitimate, one millionth word.

It said Web 2.0 started out as a technical term meaning the next generation of World Wide Web products and services but had crossed into far wider circulation in the last six months.

Other linguists, however, denounced the list as pure publicity and unscientific, saying it was impossible to count English words in use or to agree on how many times a word must be used before it is officially accepted.

There are no set rules for such a count as there is no certified arbiter of what constitutes a legitimate English word and classifying the language is complicated by the number of compound words, verbs and obsolete terms.

"I think it's pure fraud ... It's not bad science. It's nonsense," Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguistics professor at the University of California at Berkeley, told reporters.

Paul JJ Payack, president of the Global Language Monitor, brushed off the criticism, saying his method was technically sound.

"If you want to count the stars in the sky, you have to define what a star is first and then count. Our criteria is quite plain and if you follow those criteria you can count words. Most academics say what we are doing is very valuable," said Payack.

He has calculated that about 14.7 new English words or phrases are generated daily and said the five words leading up to the millionth highlighted how English was changing along with current social trends.

This list included "Jai Ho!" an Indian exclamation signifying victory or accomplishment, and "slumdog," a derisive term for children living in the slums of India that became popular with the Oscar-winning movie "Slumdog Millionaire."

The list also included "cloud computing," meaning services delivered via the cloud or Internet, "carbon neutral," a widely used term in the climate change debate, and "N00b," a derogatory term from the gaming community for a newcomer.

"Some 400 years after the death of the Bard, the words and phrases were coined far from Stratford-Upon-Avon, emerging instead from Silicon Valley, India, China, and Poland, as well as Australia, Canada, the U.S. and the UK," said Texas-based Payack.

(Writing by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Miral Fahmy)

Godin's 6-month MBA

It's unaccreditated, free, residential and six months long. Details here.

This was the 'online forum' used throughout the course.